Month: March 2016

Oh, hey. Remember when I used to blog?

You can check out my old blog if you need a refresher. Just know this one is going to be different, because almost a year has passed, and I am different, and I’m also not living on the other side of the world anymore. (There are also various other past attempts at blogging, but we won’t bother linking to those.)

I have some regrets involving my last go at blogging.
I wish I’d put myself into it fully. I should’ve been more consistent.
I wish I’d put more work into setting it up.
I didn’t, and so, my interest in blogging faded, as my interest in so many things tends to fade. (I’m a dabbler and I have a short attention span. What can I say?)

New and revived blog = no more .blogspot.com. Praise Jesus! But setting up the website I imagine in my head is a process, and my current life involves running from work, to school, to coffee shops to listen/talk with friends, to The Living Room, to my internship at Music For Everyone, to family time, and then just trying to find time to write and rest in my Father (and occasionally squeezing in a couple episodes of Friends on Netflix). So, this site isn’t quite what I want, yet.

“You may as well just start,” I told myself. “It’s never going to be quite what you imagined. It’s always going to need work. At this rate, you’ll be 90 years old, working on starting a blog, and your kids aren’t even going to know what a blog is.”

I had a rough time picking a name. Obviously, I chose carriewagler.com. The main reason: if I’m going to purchase a domain name, it may as well be something that I will want for professional use down the road. If carriedaway.com was available, I would probably have gone with that. But it wasn’t. So, c’est la vie. The logic behind “carried away”, is there’s a big chance of this blog focusing heavily on my travels, which will hopefully begin again after I graduate. If you followed along on my study abroad journey, you probably remember #carriedawaytoscotland. Good times. Also, I have a tendency of getting carried away, especially when I have a pen in my hand or my fingers on a keyboard. And then there’s the NAME THING. But whatever. It’s in the header.

I’ve laid down my journal and inserted myself back behind my laptop screen, because honestly, I can’t post 5 paragraphs of my random ramblings with EVERY Instagram post. And let’s be real: God’s glory and love and DAILY impact in my life CANNOT be contained in less than 5 paragraphs.

So. Let’s get a little Carried Away…

Hi. I’m Carrie.

If you don’t know me, or if you do know me but have yet to crack through those exterior layers (ha), you can learn a little more by checking out my About section.

“Prone to Wander” was my theme for my last blog. It’s always been a phrase I’ve connected with, and “Come Thou Fount” has been one of my favorite hymns for as long as I can remember.

“O to grace how great a debtorDaily I’m constrained to be!Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,Bind my wandering heart to Thee.Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,Prone to leave the God I love;Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,Seal it for Thy courts above.”

Contentment has been a hard thing for me to find. It’s always been hard for me to stay in one place. I come from a family of movers and shakers – a family who isn’t afraid to move to a new place and start over. It is hard for me to stop moving and find contentment in just being still. When my life was pretty much nonstop travel, “prone to wander” was a phrase I embraced. But now?

I don’t want to wander anymore.

God has done some pretty rad binding in my life lately. The funny thing is, I asked Him to. I am trying my best to welcome it. Only a few years ago, giving up control was the last thing on my mind. I’ve spent so much of my life being independent and strong. And alone. In the past year, my relationship with Jesus has become a relationship unlike anything I could’ve hoped for. My connection with the Holy Spirit has become a living, breathing connection that I didn’t realize I could find. He’s taken me deeper, and He’s asking more of me.

And I’m the weakest I’ve EVER been.

But holy cow, how He’s come through for me. He’s shown me contentment in being here, in Lancaster County – of all places! I’m not saying I’ll live here forever, I’m just saying, for now, for this season of my life, this is where He’s placed me. And… I’m… okay with it? I always planned to move away. I always planned to live in a big city and live some kind of sophisticated movie life that I imagined. I always planned…

But His plans are bigger, and better, and crazier than I ever could’ve imagined.

I searched all around the world, to find my way back here, living in the house where I grew up, going to a church three minutes (1 minute 40 seconds if I hit a green light) from that house, and I’m about to start working for my family business. And I’m happy.

In essence, I’m content with being rooted in a place I never, in a million years, saw for myself. While I’m freaked out/confused by how much my desires have changed, I am also awed at how good He is, and how gently He has guided my heart.

1 Corinthians 12 says,

9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

Oh man.

His power is made perfect in weakness. His power is made perfect when I really NEED Him. I am learning that, as I surrender my will again (and again), every single day. His grace is sufficient for me, no. matter. what.

I’m still getting to a place where I can “boast” of my weakness. It’s not being self-deprecating. It’s embracing the fact that where I am weak, My God Is Strong. It’s resting in Him. It’s realizing that the most powerful Being in the universe dwells in me. In my weakness, I am pliable, and I am bound to Him, and He can use me for whatever He wants. Even if it’s “just” being here in Lancaster.

What I’m Listening To This Week:

xoxo,

Carrie

Advertisements

Hi, I'm Carrie!

I write about faith, books, travel, culture, and whatever else suits me on any given day.

Categories

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites.
If you purchase something through an Amazon link posted by me, I will make a small commission. I will never link to any items I do not use and love.